China's Elusive Pet Food Regulation

John Balzano
, ContributorI write about food safety regulatory issues in China.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Long-term, all-too-frequent, and severe safety issues with pet treats and pet food coming from China have led to serious questions about the state of China’s pet food regulations. The answer to those questions may be fairly simple: China does not have a significant body of pet food law, regulations, and standards. What it does have is hard to find and scattered within regulations and standards administered by different agencies, with no one agency taking the lead in resolving problems.

A comparison to the regulation for human food is helpful to understand what’s missing. In the human food area, mainly two laws govern, the Food Safety Law and the Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Law. They set the basic framework for safety by laying out barriers to entry in the market for manufacturers and distributors of food products and additives, articulate basic principles of hygiene and safety, establish a structure for post-market surveillance of issues, and set penalties, whether in the form of administrative fines, license revocation, civil compensation, or a cross-reference to the Criminal Code.

China has several administrative agencies dedicated to implementing human food laws, as well as a high-level Food Safety Commission dedicated to macro-policy advice. The four agencies that have the most important roles in human food regulation are: the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA), the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. Together these agencies, among other things, supervise farming practices, license and inspect manufacturers and distributors, enact standards for ingredients and approve new additives, and supervise imports and exports.

Furthermore, a recent restructuring of CFDA gave it more significant powers over coordinating and supervising the implementation of food safety regulation. This restructuring of CFDA injected a new vigor into human food regulatory efforts. Since that change, CFDA has taken a more active role in reforming food policy and regulation, and become increasingly creative in its regulatory methods. For example, the Agency recently released a new “app” for citizens to monitor food and drug data. It has also announced new enforcement initiatives for food safety and is seeking to use the police as a means of breaking up underground operations that produce adulterated food.

By comparison, no laws or regulations establish as comprehensive a structure for pet food. There is no pet food law, there is no pet food manufacturing regulation, and there is no set of specific measures for supervising pet food safety or punishing wrongdoers. A recommended standard for dog treats exists, and a few recommended standards administered by the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine related to the export of animal food and feed also come up after several broad searches online and in databases. The Ministry of Agriculture also administers regulations on the safety of animal feed and feed additives.

Local regulation on the issue is similarly sparse. Oftentimes when there is a lack of central regulation on an issue, the provinces will enact their own regulations to compensate or as an experiment before central government regulations emerge. However, there is no apparent evidence of comprehensive local regulations concerning pet food in the provinces.

And if the human food laws are meant to apply to pet food, it is not clear. For example, the Food Safety Law defines “food” as raw materials and finished products that are meant for human consumption. “Food safety” is roughly defined as non-toxic food that does not harm human health.

A frequent complaint about Chinese law is that despite the growing body of law and regulation on the books it is selectively enforced, if enforced at all. Whether you think that is true or not, if no law exists, or it is extremely difficult to locate, there is barely a fighting chance for compliance and enforcement.